Falling where flowers don't grow (a fate so sweet)
by Mooky-aron
Summary: Oh to fall where flowers don't grow. Such a fate would be so sweet. Hanahaki Au.


Oh to fall where flowers don't grow. Such a fate would be so sweet.

When Sakura can no longer bear the daisies pushing up inside her chest, she rips them out. It's hardly even an issue, green chakra coating her lungs as she selects a sharp-bladed set of garden scissors from her desk.

With cool detachment, she wonders whether it will hurt.

Of course it will.

But as vines tighten around her bones, she feels the agony of apathy tempt her closer and closer, and nothing will come close to this.

The slide of a sharpened blade into her chest is both excruciating and freeing, as she feels a gentle stem snap and a rush of _nothing_ fills her chest.

She abandons the scissors and _digs_.

The skin of her chest is pulled back, grotesque but she cannot bring herself to care. She can see her heart beating, edged by green chakra that keeps the tattered lining of her skin from weeping and letting her bleed out. It's odd and she dissociates for just a fraction of a second, just enough time for her to realise how fucking twisted this is. This could easily be enough to get her pinged in the mental analysis list and she adds Ino to the ever-growing list of 'people who can never, ever know'.

She's gone too far to stop now, as she watches her body function before her eyes. The pain has faded, ever so slightly and she grins viciously at the rush of icy _nothing_ as she plucks a daisy from its resting place. It's roots had been wound around her spine and she shivers at the sensation of its hungry roots detaching from muscle and bone alike.

This garden has always been hungry but as if sensing its time is running out, it devours now. Ferns are crowding for room in her throat and she coughs as orange petals pile like autumn's old gold on the torn skin of her torso. Marigolds are crowding for space in her garden and she won't have these anymore. This heart is _**hers**_.

 _ **He cannot have all of her.**_

Her pace grows frantic. A pile of blood stained and, viscera and root blind flowers grows from second to second, thrown about her in her panic. She wants them out.

And then she can't find anymore.

There are no flowers in her throat. There are no vines wound like daisy chains across her ribs and the creep of the marigolds is halted in her lungs.

She is blessedly, blessedly, blessedly—

finally—

 _ **Free**_ —

A snowdrop unfurls before her eyes, it's silky petals bobbing innocently and she reaches for the scissors, scrabbling hand leaving ominous trails on the tile floor and she glances up from her workplace—

And straight into red eyes.

Red eyes that are wide and shocked and staring.

"What the _fuck_ are you doing?"

She hasn't ever heard Sasuke actually swear before. She barely has time to consider it, as bone pale hands snatch the scissors from her hands and her head swims, sickeningly. Perhaps she is losing blood after all.

What is she doing?

She has to get that flower out. She can feel the scrape of endless longing against her bones and she wants it to _stop_.

Her fingers dig into without thought, tugging at the root bed of the snowdrop but a horrified gasp interrupts her, bone white fingers tinged with blood yanking her fingers from her flesh. Her nail catches and tears, a rivulet of blood uncontained by the barrier of medical chakra.

She hasn't ever seen Sasuke cry but there are tears at the corners of his eyes. They are tears, contained but there.

 _(But no one cries for her)_

 _(Right?)_

"Stop Sakura, stop!"

Her hands were digging in again, and she can't remember when they moved.

"It hurts."

Sasuke's frantic movements still for a moment, his eyes resting on pale sea foam eyes that are tearing at the corners.

"He won't ever love me. I'm going to die, and I can't stop loving him. This forest is going to burn sooner or later, and there isn't anywhere to go. Please, let me stop feeling this. Please." There's something desperate in her eyes now, something wild and untamed. She reminds him of a rabbit, it's leg caught in a trap and gaze begging for release.

He reaches forward and tugs, pulling at the last vestiges of her heart and tugging until it pulls free.

"I'll make it better. I promise."

And deep inside a heart long since laid aside, like spring rain in April, lilacs bloom in a dead land and he seals his fate with a sigh.

Oh to fall where flowers don't grow. Such a fate would be so sweet.


End file.
